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vallisneria problem

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Anyone have any experience with vallisneria plants? I cannot get mine to grow tall but they create lots of runners with smaller plants so I am not sure what I am doing wrong. I cannot imagine they would be reproducing so much if the conditions were not to their liking...How do I get them to spend their energy on getting tall instead of reproducing?

It is a 75gal with 4 48" HO T5 bulbs (1 GLO power gro, 1 GLO life glo, 2 Coralife 10,000K) I can have 2 or 4 bulbs on at a time. I usually have all 4 bulbs on 3-4 hours per day and then 2 of them on for another 8 hours or so. I use flourish and flourish excel, the pH is 6.8, the substrate is black flourite.
The are actually Italian Val and contortionist Val. The Italian val was about
14" when I got it but the leaves were either breaking off or I trimmed them way back because they were not healthy so they became short. I was expecting them to grow back but instead the plant is spreading....

Actually, you need to switch out some bulbs. 10,000 K is too white for proper photosynthesis. You want bulbs that are 6700K, which is the color temperature of sunlight in the top four meters of water in the tropics.

What is your substrate? Though Vals are hardy, they do best in a fine, iron-rich substrate.

By the way, be patient. Because it's spreading, it'll have daughter plants growing soon. When they have about six leaves, you can detach it from the runner and plant it where you will. Be sure to trim the runner afterwards so it doesn't decay.

Occurred to me, did you plant the Vals with the crown of the plant (where the leaves emerge, on top of the substrate?

Dave

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